I remember the night I first met Freya Mikaelson, the eldest sibling of the Mikaelson family, a sister to Finn, Elijah, Klaus, Kol, and Rebekah, a sister that until that night I had fully believed had died as a child taken by cruel winter.
"For someone who seems to have quite a respectable reputation amongst witches, I would assume you would be harder to find," Freya said as she sat down on the bench where I was placed within Central Park during a particularly sunny and warm summer's morning, keeping herself at a cautious distance as she sat next to me.
At this moment I had no clue who this woman was but just by sitting next to her I could feel the power within this witch, a power rather respectable and very unusual within the age she was portraying, but then again, I looked like I was barely in my twenties when I had not been in my twenty for many years, many centuries even.
"I have no reason to have myself hidden after all your kind rarely tries to kill me these days and those who are foolish enough to try to serve as further warnings to the others not to go up against someone who could easily erase them from this earth," I replied making sure this witch knew if she had come here to kill me, she would not be living for much longer. "So, are you here to die, or are you here to plead with me to help you with whatever spell you cannot fathom…although I highly doubt, you're the kind of witch who needs help with a spell."
"Well until recently I did not think it was possible for me not to find some magical solution to save my siblings but this time, they have managed to get themselves into one hell of a mess, one I cannot help them get out of alone," Freya revealed to me rather honestly and freely to which I respected. "You're not quite a witch but not quite a vampire so the chances are you either hate both or you don't hate the vampires half as much as most witches do."
"Your siblings are vampires?" I scoffed. "Witches often get themselves into trouble with vampires despite claiming them as their eternal enemies, I guess we're just moths to the forbidden flame allowing ourselves to choose desire with deadly consequences, but never have I heard of a witch claiming vampires as their family before."
"Well, I am not just some other witch I am a Mikaelson witch, and my siblings are the original vampires, their very blood is running through your veins," Freya replied with a sense of anger, as I struggled to take in her revelation.
"I did suspect your power was far too grand for the age you appear to be, but the only Mikaelson witch I know of from that family is Esther and you are most certainly not wretched enough to be that woman," I said, dismissing her claims, refusing to believe what she had told me.
"Firstly, thank you for calling that heartless bitch wretched I did not realize you knew of her nor my family but please whatever vendetta you have against my siblings…" She began to say, confusing me with her words.
"I have no vendetta against the Mikaelsons, well none of the living anyway." I immediately responded, as I slowly began believing her story. "Who are you?"
"Freya Mikaelson." She answered.
"That's impossible," I replied with a great sense of utter shock. "You died many lifetimes ago!"
"How do you know so much about me and my family?" Freya proceeded to ask me, seeming equally as confused as me but could she really be the eldest daughter of Esther and Mikael, and if she was how the hell had she never heard of me.
If this witch was telling the truth then it had meant that Klaus, Rebekah, Elijah…even Kol had forgotten me like I was just a momentary blip in their never-ending lives, that my love for them was nowhere near as equally shared as I once thought and although the idea of imploding my centuries longs believes terrified more than anything had ever done before I had no choice but to stick with this witch for a little longer for if she was right, her family, which felt like my own family, needed my help and even if I meant nothing to them they meant everything to me.
Freya went on to tell me how she was taken as a child by Esther's sister Dahlia, a witch I had heard possessed great power but never knew it was from kidnapping firstborns, she then told me of her reunion with her siblings, how she fought to be a part of their lives, and how much she valued family above all else, she was definitely a Mikaelson alright, and after she had convinced me of such I decided to go with the eldest Mikaelson sibling to New Orleans to speak with her friend Vincent Griffiths to get the full details of The Hollow, so I could find a way to rid the family of her wretched, cursed, presence that had divided them for almost a decade.
Now do not get me wrong I am not one to quickly jump to anyone's rescue unless of course there is something in it for me and the longer I have lived the higher the price of my involvement has risen, however, I owe the Mikaelson's my life and because of that debt, I did not think of my fees for a true rarity for me and instead choose to do this to return a favor to the only family I ever knew.
"So, you are the mysterious and notorious original heretic, a man born as a witch with no power only to die and have it all. A creature that is neither a friend of the living or the dead but will help either if his needs are met." Vincent Griffiths greeted me, as myself and Freya met him within the middle of New Orleans' Lafayette Cemetery. "Tell me what great cost Freya is paying for you to help us with our hollow situation?"
"Well, he hasn't yet told me what he wants but I don't care, as long as I get my family back nothing else matters!" Freya replied to the New Orleans regent before I had any chance to respond.
"Like I said to Freya in New York my involvement in this situation is free of charge whether either you choose to believe me is beside the point I am merely here to get the facts about the hollow and how in the hell it wound up in not one but four members of the Mikaelson family," I told them both, knowing that they were unlikely to believe me but not caring whether they did or not.
I was not in this cemetery to build trust, nor seeking some form of friendship with either witch, witches were not the kind of people I tended to make friends with nor did I desire to, I was there to return a favor owed to the Mikaelson family and if I am I entirely honestly it would serve my reputation well if I was the one to rid the hollow once and for all, allowing me to step out of the shadows of an overrated source of power and be seen by all as the true power within this wretched world, so I guess if it serves my ego it is not entirely a selfless act but then again is there such a thing as a selfless act?
I spent hours which turned into days, endless days, in which I would soak up all the knowledge Freya and Vincent had to give, which quite frankly was rather limited in comparison to the witches, grimoires, spells, and potions I had learned over the centuries but in fairness these two impressive witches did manage to teach me many things I did not know specifically the birth of Inadu, how she became so powerful, and the curse she placed on those who betrayed her which I have to admit was one hell of a badass move that I had no choice but to reluctantly admire, who doesn't love a good revenge story?
However, this little witch took things too far by taking possession of the body of a little girl, Klaus' little girl to be precise, and even briefly killed Elijah, and there are two things I do not accept no matter their reasoning, one being harming a child in any way whatsoever and the other was disrespecting Elijah, a man who I had looked up to for most of my life, a man I admired more than anyone, and a man who had shown me such kindness at a time when I needed it most.
So, if I did not have enough reason to want to take the hollow out of all forms of existence I most definitely found some as I continued to study this once all-powerful witch who now lingered within the bodies of Klaus, Elijah, Rebekah, and Kol as nothing more than a soulless stain on their auras threatening to kill not only them but Klaus' daughter Hope if it ever found its way back to the youngest member of the Mikaelson family.
As I spent more and more time with Freya studying absolutely everything they had on the hollow I found myself studying the Mikaelson as well, noticing how she was about family above all else just like her brother Elijah, how much she loved her werewolf lover Keelin with all her heart like her sister Rebekah loved without caution, and how protective she was over what little she had just like her half brother Klaus, and it was not long before I found myself fond of this woman, the first witch I found myself tolerating in over two centuries.
Then finally, the time I had come, an idea was hatched, and I began to plot the demise of the hollow once and for all while keeping my cards close to my chest at the same time, knowing if I gave too much away they would just act out my plan without me and I'd miss the chance to be in a room with all Elijah, Klaus, Kol, and Rebekah for this first time in what felt like forever and in my mind, it truly had been.
The moment I walked into that piano bar with Freya I found myself hit with a wave of nostalgia, it had been a long time since I was in France, in fact, the last time I was in France was with Elijah, the very man we had gone there to get, and we did not have to look far as Elijah was placed exactly where I knew he would be, sat behind the piano playing a beautiful song the I had not heard of before.
I could tell from a single side glance at Freya that seeing her brother again after such a long time was as difficult for her as it was for me, if not more and the urge to reach out and touch her hand, the urge to comfort her, was so strong but I knew we were nowhere near close enough for her to be comforted by me. After all, to her, I was nothing more than a stranger, a stranger she needed for now and would soon forget after that need was gone which had clearly been the case for the rest of her family.
"Your music never fails to strike some sort of cord within my very soul," Was the first thing I said to Elijah after Freya and I walked over to the piano, ready to get things into motion, ready to reunite the Mikaelson siblings. "I wish I took you up on those lessons many moons ago."
"I'm sorry but I do not think I know you, do I?" He replied, his words hurting me despite the knowledge that he was spelled to forget everything about his past, not just me, but the pain was still the same.
"Is there somewhere where could speak alone?" Freya asked her brother, who had no knowledge that she was his sister.
"I am rather busy right now but if you want to request a song…" Elijah began to say as he focused on playing the piano.
Before he had the chance to finish his sentence before he had a chance to try and usher us away so he could focus on playing the piano in a mediumly crowded bar, I raised my right hand up in the air before clenching it in a fist as I shouted the word "Spavati" as loudly as I could and as I shouted those words everyone in the room except for myself, Freya, and Elijah, fell to the ground, lifeless, having been spelled into a deep sleep instantly.
"Well, now you're not busy!" Freya stated, stealing the words straight out of my mouth. "So, can we have that talk now?".
Elijah was of course resistant at first like anyone would be after witnessing what they had just witnessed especially with little to no knowledge of the supernatural world. So, we decided to do to him what I had done to the rest of the bar and cast a sleeping spell on the original vampire, a spell which would last just long enough for Freya and me to cast a rather complicated memory restoration spell that would require a lot of power but luckily I had a firstborn Mikaelson witch by my side and before too long all of Elijah Mikaelson's memories were installed and I was more than ready for him to finally remember me…and yet somehow when he woke with seemingly all of his memories restored he still had absolutely no recollection of who I was or what I believed I had once meant to him.
Once his memories of his family and his a thousand-year life were restored, minus any recollection of myself, Elijah, Freya, and I soon left France to once again to New Orleans where we planned to meet Klaus, Kol, and Rebekah within the family's compound as I prepared myself to take on the hollow but nothing could prepare for the fact that just like their elder brother Elijah, neither Klaus, Kol, nor Rebekah had any idea who I was, not a single memory of me was stored within any of their minds, it was as if I never existed to them, or maybe I just did not make the impression I believed I did all those years ago.
After all, centuries had passed since I last saw any of them but still how could they not remember me?
How could they mean so much to me and yet I was nothing but a stranger to them?
One thing I knew for certain was by the time I was done in New Orleans; everybody would remember the name of the heretic known as Salem Helsing!